The Email
by easyqueenie
Summary: Scully receives an email from her brother Charles which leads her to an interesting Google search. Just a bit of fun, no spoilers.


Scully lay on her side on Mulder's bed trying to focus her attention on the laptop sat beside her. It was only morning but the room was already stifilingly hot, despite the window being open. She briefly checked the weather forecast for the day and sighed, it was going to be even hotter than it had been all week. She flipped back to the case file she was trying to examine, but after reading the same sentence four times and not taking any of its meaning in, she gave it up as a lost cause, closed the lid of the computer and rolled onto her back, taking the sheet with her as it stuck to any bare flesh it could find. In the next room, the sound of running water indicated that Mulder was still in the shower. Scully could hear the tinny sound of the radio playing, she strained to try and make out the tune but the quality was so poor and the water so loud that all she could make out was a vague beat. Sighing out of a mixture of heat and boredom, she rolled back over and re-opened the laptop to check her email. She clicked refresh and her heart skipped a little beat, a new email had appeared from her brother Charles. Scully clicked it happily, Charles had been to Disney World with his family for a week and she had been waiting for him to email with photos, the size of the email suggested that Charles had sent plenty. The message opened and she began to read:

_Dear Dana,  
__We had a wonderful time in Orlando, the weather was perfect all the time and we only had a ten minute delay on the flight home which was no problem at all. The kids absolutely loved it, especially meeting all the characters, we could hardly pull them away from Mickey Mouse! Their favourite ride was the Tower of Terror, it's like this haunted hotel that got hit by lightning and a lift shaft got sucked into the Twilight Zone, you go in the lift and it drops you over and over. After we rode it, the kids said that Auntie Dana and her friend Fox should come and check it out, they said "it's right up Auntie Dana's alley!" You know I think they're right, you should take a trip to Disney, with your line of work I think a week in a place so happy and innocent would really be good for you._

Scully sighed and smiled, Charles had obviously been talking to Bill about her again.

_I've attached a load of photos for you, I think there's some really great ones in there, we got some pics of all of us taken by their photographers. You need to come and stay with us again for a weekend soon, the kids miss you and want to show you their new bedrooms from when we re-decorated in the spring, we never seem to see each other much considering how close we live._

_I hope you're doing well and haven't had too many nasty cases lately, I still don't know how you stomach your job. Anyway before I go the kids have ordered me to ask you to do something. There's this thing going around at school where they type their names into Google and see what comes up, we've all done it too but not got much of interest. However when we typed in your name we got something VERY interesting! I won't say what but I really think you should try it, hehehe._

_Give my best to Agent Mulder, he'd be very welcome to come with you if you visit. I need to go and call mom now so I'd best wish you a good Halloween, Happy Thanksgiving and a Merry Christmas while I'm here as I bet she's going to have me on the phone for months asking about the trip!_

_Love from all,_

_Charles_

Scully scanned down looking at the photos of her brother, sister-in-law and nephews having fun in Orlando, seeing their happy smiling faces made her wonder if taking a trip to the Sunshine State might not be such a bad idea after all, she could really use a top up of her tan. However the comment about Google made her confused and slightly nervous, what on Earth was there written on the internet about her, or what had another Dana Scully done to make her brother so amused? Just as she was about to open Google, Mulder walked into the room wearing just a towel and drying his hair with a flannel.

"Hey, did you make any progress on that case?" he asked

"No, it's too hot to concentrate on it," Scully replied, "Mulder why are you drying your hair with a flannel?"

"I've run out of towels, I haven't done any laundry in a month" he said, looking rather sheepish. Scully rolled her eyes.

"I'll put some on for you later" she muttered "anyway I got an email from Charles."

"Yeah?" said Mulder, sitting down beside her on the bed "Did he have a good time on vacation?"

"Here, have a read yourself" she said, pushing the laptop towards him. Mulder leant forward and read the email, smiling as he did. "I'm glad they had such a good time, those are great photos, I like the one of Charles in the Goofy hat, but what's this thing about Google?"

"I have no idea, I was about to do it when you walked in, here pass it over." Mulder pushed the laptop back to Scully and started to get dressed as she typed her name into Google and started scanning the results looking for whatever had amused Charles so much. The top results were just Facebook profiles but the third instantly grabbed her attention. It was titled "The Curious Adventures of Dana Scully & Fox Mulder, FBI". Feeling slightly nervous, she clicked the link. The website was dedicated to tales of the cases she and Mulder had solved, it was written in an oddly fawning manner as if they were superheroes. The more Scully read, the more embarrassed she became until Mulder noticed that her cheeks had turned pink.

"What is it?" he asked "It's not anything to do with the fact that the rather attractive semi-clad redhead on the cover of that DVD you found behind my sofa looks suspiciously like you is it? You got a secret past Scully?"

"You mean the DVD you claimed was nothing to do with you and you were just looking after for a friend who was moving?" Scully asked sarcastically, "and no Mulder, of course not, here look, it's just as bad for you as me." Mulder, now dressed, grabbed the laptop looking very worried and Scully watched his eyes flicking back and forth across the screen as he read, his mocking grin gradually dropping away.

"What the hell is this?" he finally asked, sitting beside her again and passing back the computer.

"I haven't the foggiest but whoever they are, they sure know a lot about us."

"You're telling me, have you seen the photos they've put up?"

"Photos!" Scully exclaimed, looking back at the screen quickly and staring. "Oh my God, those are from the surprise birthday party we threw Skinner in his office, where have they come from?"

"They went up on the intranet at headquarters" Mulder answered, "so whoever made this site must have access, guess they must be an FBI employee or a good hacker. You know I wouldn't put this past the Gunmen, it's the kind of prank they'd pull on me, and you know they could access that intranet any time they fancied a nose around. Seeing those pics of us, especially that one of me in that stupid party hat would give them such a laugh they'd be bound to do something to embarass me."

"I don't know Mulder, this just doesn't look like the Gunmen's work to me" Scully replied, still looking around the site. Suddenly she froze, "erm, Mulder, have you looked at the page labelled stories?"

"No, I was more concerned about what photos were up there, what's under stories?"

"There's loads of people writing stories with us as the central characters. Fictional stuff with us solving cases... oh my God there's one called 'When Scully Met Buffy'" At this Mulder grabbed the laptop and started to read, laughing out loud every so often.

"This is brilliant!" he said through laughter "it has you running around graveyards with a stake and being chatted up by high school seniors."

"And what are you doing while I'm having all this excitement?" Scully asked, looking both amused and nervous.

"Just hanging out in the school library with the librarian guy from the show, researching stuff, oh and going undercover to a frat party" Mulder said, passing the laptop back. Scully took it and had another look around the website before something clicked in her mind.

"I remember someone once telling me about a young agent working in accounts who was always requesting the X-Files cases because she found them really amazing. I'm sure they said she was almost obsessive about them, knew every last detail. She would have access to all the details here, and the photos from the intranet too, plus if she really is as obsessive as I was told, that might explain the stories. Let me see... yes, there's an author name on one of the stories, Leyla Harrison, I remember now, that was the agent's name."

"There's someone out there who thinks we're interesting enough to read about and write about too?" Mulder asked incredulously. "They must be completely bonkers. Hey Scully, it's hot as hell in here, why don't we take a walk down to that new ice cream parlour that just opened two blocks away and get ourselves some tasty gelatos?"

"Sounds good Mulder" Scully replied, closing the site down and shutting the laptop before picking out some clothes from the drawer designated as hers in Mulder's bedroom.

As they left the apartment and walked down the hallway a few minutes later, Scully turned to Mulder and said, "Hey Mulder, have you ever fancied going to Disney World...?"


End file.
